Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Laundry Area Update

The laundry room. Some people love theirs, some people hate theirs. Some wish they had their own, some wish they never had to go in there again. However you feel about it, its necessary. Maybe a necessary evil in some cases. I too have sort of a love-hate relationship with my laundry "room". I love that I have my own, since we live in an apartment, but hate that it doesn't have doors and we aren't using the space to its full potential.
My laundry area, well its really more of a closet, has some really nice storage shelves and I love that. Any extra storage that you can get in an apartment is a big deal. But it's not actually all that pretty to have just out in the open. Okay, so its not "out in the open" like its in my living room or anything dramatic like that. It's just an open closet at the back of the apartment across from the bathroom and in front of the bedrooms. I feel like I should draw a picture to explain the layout.
Anyway, here's what it looks like: (I apologize for the bad lighting in all of these photos)

So, there's nothing too exciting going on here. The shelves are relatively organized, not beautiful, but not too bad either.

But, here's what it looked like after my closet clean out. A hanger EXPLOSION!!

Those all got kicked out of my closet, with the exception of the 10-15 that were already hanging here for hanging drying clothes. Clearly they could not stay here. But what to do with them? I didn't want to get rid of them just to have to buy more hangers when we moved and had a bigger closet . Because that will be at the top of my moving criteria list--kitchen, bathroom, nice view- eh who cares, as long as they exist? I might exaggerate a little, but seriously no deal without a massive closet.
So I packaged them up with duct tape into nice little packages to be stored. Because who wants to sort through a massive bag of tangled hangers? My insane OCD brain really wanted to put them into pretty matching packs of 10 like the come from the store, but luckily I talked myself out of it and just grabbed a handful at a time. I just put a strip of tape on either side of the hook so they stayed together nicely. I sent them off to my parents, to live with my Christmas decorations.

After I got rid of my hangers, I was back to that nice empty rod. It was just begging for me to put a curtain on it.
I thought I was being like a super genius when I grabbed this little guy at WalMart....It had the curtain and the hooks all together. Fantastic right? *buzzer sounds* Wrong! The hooks didn't fit on my closet rod, because apparently it is not the same size as a shower curtain rod. Maybe that's common knowledge?? I just figured they looked about the same, but nope.

So when I was at Target, I hit up the curtain section. *buzzer sounds* wrong again! Those babies are expensive and still didn't really have a nice method of having off the rod. Then it hit me, use a shower curtain with bigger hooks you silly person! So I raced walked sedately as to not look like a crazy person, to the bath department.

I found this guy:

LOOK AT THAT PRICE TAG PEOPLE! I couldn't pass up a bargain like that! My apartment literally has no color scheme besides in the bathroom, so it worked out fine.

But I did go with the cheap-o shower hooks, we're on a budget here. And they were the biggest, I didn't want another disappointment when things not fitting.

I did make a few changes to some things since the last time I shared my dirty laundry (area) (ha, see what I did there?)

That clear tote holds a few that were in need of a new home. Random office supplies, external hard drive... they needed to be stashed away, but still within easy reach so I didn't' want them all the way out in the garage.

My laminator and cricut are still there (my cricut is hiding in the back you can just see a corner peaking out under the orange purse. Don't mind the purses just tossed up there, they need to get a pretty tote or basket to live in. But purse storage is not a priority in the budget, so until I find something on mega sale, they stay unpretty.

laundry and craft supplies should obviously be stored together??

Nothing changed over here...oxi clean in the pretty jar and my sockies in the baskets.

And this cute little piggy holds our change that comes out of the laundry. It's just so cute!

So after a little tidying I popped up my curtain and it works great! Sorry for the dark photo, it looked even worse with the laundry light on. I can still hang my non-dryables and it doesn't look too bad. I think the curtain even helps to muffle the sound a little. Our washer is pretty quiet, but the dryer is a little louder. I love that it makes the laundry closet into its own area and not a part of the hallway. A super simple project for $12, that I think made a big difference. Now I feel a little more love and a little less hate for my laundry closet :)